As time has progressed, technology has provided the ability to record and playback audio and video. At the beginning of each of their respective developments, both audio and video recorders were high-end, expensive items that only a select few could acquire. As designs and manufacturing processers improved and were less costly, it became possible for average consumers to purchase audio and video recorders for personal use.
Today audio and video recorders are responsible for many of the necessitates and conveniences of modern life. Music, television, films and compute programs all relay on audio and/or video recorders to function. In addition to those common uses and applications, audio and video recorders have also improved an individual's ability to perform contain requirements. For example, audio and video recorders have improved the lives of people with physical or mental disabilities.
Another use of audio and video recording is to assist students, employees and others who are being taught various subjects. Instead of relying on memory or note-taking, a person at a lecture can record what is said by the teacher. By adding video recording, a person can also view what a teacher is writing on a board or showing. Unfortunately, in order to facilitate recording audio or video of a lecture, for example, a person will typically use a standard general use audio or video recorder, or another device that happens to have audio and/or video recording capability.
None of these devices are optimally designed to record audio or video in an educational setting, which often places the student a distance from the teacher and contends with other difficult recording conditions.
What is needed is a purpose designed and built audio and/or video recorder for use in an educational setting, to record lectures or other information. The lecture recorder would be capable of recording from a distance and would provide functionally such as marker setting to quickly and easily allow a person to access a particular part on section of an extended lecture.
A search of the prior art did not disclose any literature or patents that read directly on the claims of the instant invention. However, the following U.S. patents are considered related:
PAT. NO.INVENTORISSUED5,965,821Bouchard21 Jun. 20116,292,543Cannon18 Sep. 20015,903,868Yuen11 May 1999
The U.S. Pat. No. 5,965,821 patent discloses a method for controlling a voice recorder that is used to record a voice session between an origination device and a destination device. The method can be executed at a computing apparatus coupled to the origination device and to the voice recorder.
The U.S. Pat. No. 6,292,543 patent discloses a voice messaging system for receiving information relating to an incoming telephone call and includes a memory to store the information relating to the incoming call. A processor initiates an outgoing announcing message in response to the incoming call. A voice recorder records in the memory a voice message corresponding to the incoming call.
The U.S. Pat. No. 5,903,868 patent discloses an audio recorder having a retroactive storage capability that operates under control of a sound responsive switch. The switch enters signals representative of the instantaneous sound signals received by a microphone into a first-in first-out memory. When the memory is filled, digital signals representative of newly recorded sound supplant the oldest signals in the memory. An operator listening to the sound may retroactively capture signals representative of the most recently occurring sounds.